Zaghari's UK diplomatic protection certainly outrageous: Analyst

Britain’s decision to givediplomatic protection to Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari, who is serving her term in Iran on espionage charges, is “outrageous”, says an analyst, adding that it is “out of normal diplomatic practice.”

“I have never heard of such a thing of this strange diplomatic protection … I think that if it is not illegal, it is certainly out of normal diplomatic practice and seeks to get things done out of normal diplomatic channels when the British government could just easily talk to the Iranian government … So in my view, if it is not illegal, it is certainly outrageous,” J. Michael Springmann, a former US diplomat, told Press TV in an interview on Sunday.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced on Friday that London had decided to give Zaghari diplomatic protection “as part of the government’s continuing efforts to secure her release.”

In reaction to Hunt’s statement, Iranian Ambassador to London Hamid Baeidinejad said the UK government’s extension of diplomatic protection to Zaghari contravenes international law.

Iran’s intelligence authorities arrested Zaghari at Imam Khomeini International Airport in April 2016 as she was on her way back to London.

She was subsequently put on trial and handed a five-year jail term after being found guilty of spying and spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic.

British media had claimed that she worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation and was on vacation in Iran when she was arrested. However, former UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said in a statement to a parliamentary committee in 2017 that Zaghari had been “simply teaching people journalism.”